Remakes and remasters are one of those things that feels ironically modern, and whilst they’ve had a place in the industry longer than some people think, there’s no doubt that companies are seeing dollar signs in their eyes when they look back at older successful franchises. Bleeding us nerds for all our nostalgia is a safe and reliable business practice, but hey, we get to play our favourite old games in a new way, so it’s not like we don’t get something out of the arrangement.

One of the more recent entries into this hallowed remastered hall of gubbins is Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a complete remake of the first three games that made Spyro what he was until toys-to-life became more profitable. It’s been out on other systems for a good while now – and it was announced for Switch with very little fanfare – but now it’s here, and we’re going to delve into how it plays, runs, jumps, and flies, because that’s what a review does.

If you’re unfamiliar with our purple dragon dude, Spyro is a dragon. He runs around fast and collects an awful lot of treasure which always seems to take the form of perfectly-cut gems. We’re not sure what jewellers exist in the Dragon World, but they’re nothing if their not diligent at their jobs but seem to have an issue holding onto their work on the walk home. Gems are everywhere, and you’re going to need to grab them, as well as other collectables, in order to achieve victory.

Spyro moves largely as you’d expect; he’d a quadruped, so he doesn’t quite have the acrobatic skill of a certain red plumber who will remain nameless, and his move set is neither as varied as the Nintendo-branded, moustache-owning individual seen in the likes of Super Mario 64, nor as flowing. What he lacks in jumping however, he makes up for in combat and his piddly little wings. Spyro can charge, yes, but more impressively he can also breathe fire out of his gob and glide over longer distances than any Mario game (save Odyssey) would dare.

Spyro controls in a somewhat stiff manner, meaning you may be wrestling with the controls at times for what feels like no good reason. The developers have been shamelessly diligent in their recreation of the classic games, right down to the dated controls, and whilst that may put some people off; it’s a very bold decision and one that, in our eyes at least, just about pays off. If you’re going to remake a game, you need to do so with respect towards the originals, right down to the foibles. That’s not to say there aren’t delicious little quality of life improvements here and there, but they’re definitely few and far between, and really only serve to show you the games as you remember them – which, if we’re brutally honest, is probably through rose-tinted lenses.

The first game in the collection, simply called Spyro the Dragon, is understandably the simplest; Spyro has a basic move set that never really evolves, and all you’re tasked with doing is grabbing gems, smashing into enemies, and touching the statued forms of your dragon brethren because Gnasty Gnorc has emotional problems. You’ll explore a handful of hub worlds that each house portals to standalone levels that can be completed to 100%, or you can just touch the bare minimum of dragon statues to progress further – it’s your choice.

This entry has a very arcade-like feel to it; each level feels separate from one another, the collectables aren’t varied, and it’s almost entirely platform and combat-based. There are a few levels that task you with soaring around trying to fly through rings and burn objects, and these are a welcome change of pace. The game is undeniably great fun, but you can see the growing pains in full force here. What’s more, the interactions with the dragons you free can feel a tad stilted and out-of-place; they give you solid advice for sure, but it’s fairly clear that this is based on a game from 20 years ago. A very good game no doubt, and we had a blast playing through it, but the identity of the series hasn’t been fully realised.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage!, on the other hand, holds absolutely nothing back. The interactions between the characters, the world, and the writing feel completely modern through and through. This time around, Spyro gets thrown into the world of Avalar, inhabited by creatures that aren’t dragons (gasp!), and must help the locals defeat the evil Ripto, a misguided magician with a Napoleon complex and a less-than savoury view of dragons.

To do this you’ve got to collect a whole mess of orbs, which is handy because the inhabitants hand them out like sweets at every turn. You’ll also need gems more than ever, as you’ll need to exchange them with the questionably-motivated Moneybags in order to gain new moves and access certain areas. The convenience continues, as gems are colossally more common this time around, with you often left unable to move without slurping them up by the dozen. It’s almost as if the entire world was tailored to Spyro’s exact requirements, if you can imagine such a thing.

Spyro’s move set has advanced and evolved to the point that he has finally stopped being soluble and is now able to touch water without having an aneurysm. This time around we still have hub worlds and individual levels to explore, but they’re much, much bigger. This combined with unique races of people in each land makes the whole world feel much more alive, rather than a series of courses designed only to test your video game skills. So much about this game doesn’t actually feel like a remake of an older game; yes, there are random minigames to complete for orbs such as ice hockey and realising you can just ram into those turtles to save them from the soup pot rather than chasing them around with fire for fifteen minutes, but so much else in this game hasn’t aged a day. It’s a true testament to the design and skills of Insomniac Games, and was easily the highlight of our time with this trilogy.

Our final stop is Spyro: Year of the Dragon, the 'difficult third album' of the Spyro series. We follow a very similar formula this time as we did before, with hub worlds and standalone levels being the core gameplay loop, but instead of orbs this time we’re on the hunt for orb-like casings that contain dragons, which for some reason are referred to as dragon eggs. As expected, Spyro’s move set evolves yet again, with him finally being able to force himself to the soil 'ground pound'-style, but the biggest change here is that Sypro isn’t the only star of the show.

The past two games had a supporting cast, naturally, but you were limited to just one playable character, which is not the case in this third outing. As you enter certain levels this time, Spyro will immediately yield control to another character, and you’re thrust into an entirely new way to play for that environment. Whilst this would be a nice change of pace in small doses, it happens really quite often, and although each secondary character isn’t necessarily hard to control or understand, it upsets the flow a bit more than we’d like. With the first two games, the flying levels were a fun aside; almost a reward thanks to the high-octane speed and freedom of movement, but all the other characters in this third game (and subsequently the levels in which you play as them) feel a bit stilted and not as much fun.

We didn’t enjoy playing as these characters as much as we’d hoped, and all the while we were just honestly wishing we were playing as Spyro; he alone was good enough for the first two games, after all. That’s not to say the rest of the game isn’t fun, no sir! Every time we were playing as our favourite purple dragon the world felt more alive than ever; each level is expertly designed and simply a riot to play through, and whilst we’re sure the prospect of playing as multiple characters will have been seen as technically impressive and desirable back in the space year 2000, it’s the one thing that we feel has aged the least gracefully.

But what about the overall experience? Well, you’re getting three fairly meaty games in one here, and what’s more, they’re three pretty fantastic games that are beautifully presented. Spyro Reignited Trilogy is just out-and-out gorgeous, which makes us feel even more confused as to why there wasn’t more of a fuss kicked up about this particular version. Shadows are crisp, the animation is insultingly smooth and emotive, and the art style will remain fresh for longer than the consoles it’s been made for. Performance on Switch is pretty great as well considering, even with the busloads of anti-aliasing thrown in, sticking at 30fps or thereabouts for a vast majority of our playthrough. We did encounter a few dips here and there, but it was nothing that spoiled our ability to play the game, or indeed enjoy it. There is an option to enable motion blur when playing in TV mode, but we felt more comfortable with it off.

Conclusion

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a wonderful love letter to a classic series, keeping everything that made the original games what they were, but slapping on a fresh coat of paint for the HD era. There are a few creaking bones showing their age here and there, but only due to the developers’ desire to keep things as accurate as possible. The Switch version looks absolutely stunning and runs surprisingly well, so if you’re looking for a classic 3D platforming experience, you should definitely give this a look-in.

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Got this on PS4 for cheap. Will wait for it to be cheap on Switch as well. I would buy it now, but given that Activision has decided to channel Moneybags and not put all of it on one cartridge, I don't think I will buy it at this price.

For those who do get it though, it is a brilliant trio of games. I would argue that Ripto's Rage is the best.

Con : The physical needs to download 10GB to play any of the full games (so far two levels of the first game are working without download)
Con : The inside of the physical is just a blank sheet (as if they are not making enough money)
Joy : Just brings me back to the old days of playing a 3D platformer, love it

I had it preordered but ended up cancelling because I had eight other preorders this month that I'm more interested in and this is the only one I don't mind missing. Would have been a little more tempted if they went with a larger cartridge. Might pick it up down the line if I find it cheap enough (and by that I mean really cheap because I can already get it fairly cheap now).

This is going to be the first Switch game with a retail physical release that I will get digitally and most likely on a significant discount. With most of the package being a download, I just don't see the point and there are too many games to play at this time of the year anyway.

This is a great package! Though I would actually prefer playing these on the switch got it on the ps4 for super cheap so probably won't double dip. That aside in glad the hold up mostly from a technical standpoint.

I was really interested in grabbing this, but why the heck should I waste my money on these half-assed cartridges(basically a fake physical release)? At this point, I would have commended them if they just went ahead and made the trilogy download only.

This is why I will more than likely consider purchasing The Witcher III, because CPR is putting in the effort of having it all together.

I waited almost a year to play this trilogy and my copy will be arriving in the mail today. I'll be going back and forth between this and Astral Chain. Gears 5 on friday will jump into the mix as well.

Been playing this collection on PS4 and it is absolutely worth the price, each game is around 10 to 12 hours for completionists and for 40 bucks you can't go wrong. I think Spyro 3 might be my favorite out of the bunch, Spyro 1 is more or less like Crash 1, where it started the series but as a result it feels bare bones compared to the later games.

I wanted to pick this up last night so badly, but I have to wait till I get paid on Friday! I'm glad I waited a year though rather than getting it on PS4 and then again on Switch like I did with Crash.

Well, I need to see a comparison between the PC and this, but knowing this runs well, it's a good point.

I'm sorry, I usually don't care about how it looks if it runs well in terms of performance, but I really want to play this one on the highest quality as possible. (But I will still double dip. Need my physical copy of the game anyways!)

@diablo2 nintendo has always been this way. When it comes to their titles they are almost all 60$ or €. They know other companies don't have them so they make abuse. It's still a very simple game and remake of a game they already released. There was hardly much work as starting from the scratch and coming up with something new. That game should cost max €40 and not penny more! That's why I dislike Nintendo. At least Sony and MS they do give a pricedrop like 50 up to 70 or 80% from release date. Nintendo keeps same price no matter what. Nintendo the most expensive hardware to have! Period

@nintendolie Ps4 has higher settings. I bet they used smaller files sizes since Nintendo can't go higher than 900 or 1080p maybe for these games.. don't know haven't checked it but knowing PC for 4K games they already add an other 30 or 40gb above the regular game. So I can see how they did get fit into 1 cardridge on Switch. It's very possible

Having to download 8.7gb was a pain, but until decent 1tb micro SD cards become affordable and don't cost hundreds, then at least the cart is housing some of the data without having to have it all hogging space on whatever smaller SD card most people have (or the Switch's internal memory, God forbid)

Having never played the original on the PSOne, I eagerly got the trilogy on the Xbox One X at release...and was shocked how boring the first game was. Maybe I should have played it back in the day to feel the charm, but I wasn't able to bring myself to finish it. On a side note, the same happened to me with Crash Bandicoot. The first game of the collection was entertaining, but very hard - hard as nails - and controls felt very...boxy. Apparently, retro remasters are not my thing.

Spyro 3 was best. I have to disagree with the review, the other characters are great fun. Sgt. Bird, Sheila and even Bentley were fantastically fun and added a lot of variety. You also didn't mention the top down Sparx levels, nor the skating... (Tbh, the bonus skateboard race was so hard as a kid and it hasn't changed, so it's probably my least favourite level.) That download size is a LOT, though.

Spyro 1 and two are absolute gems and the third one is great too. I didn’t have the third as a kid so I guess that’s why I don’t like it as much. I do think spyro controls a bit stiff especially when you need to do tight turns and quick stops. But it’s just something to get used to.

But I might pass this version. I have the originals on PS1 and the PS4 remaster and I thats enough for me. I also bought the originals digitally so I can use my vita when I want some handheld spyro. Another thing making me not buy this version is the forced download. It’s ok if I want to go digital but having a cart and then a huge download. They should have gone with a bigger cart and make the game a bit more expensive in my opinion.

So you can't play any of the games w/o the download? Really what's the point of a physical release at all then? If that's the case then I'll just wait for it to go on sale on the eShop. They've been having fantastic sales lately.

Ugh it's frustrating, digital is convenient, but space is an issue. I love physical copies when possible but GameStop never reduces the price of games fast enough, or at all sometimes. You just can beat some of these eShop sales. I just keep forgetting that I downloaded things, as my gaming backlog continues to grow.

Glad to hear that the option to turn off the motion blur was carried over from the previous releases, it wasn't available when I played this sometime later last year. Having a mandatory download for accessing the other two games sucks, but it was also done on the other versions, so I can't say I'm surprised it was done here. Am fairly certain that the download size is reduced, at least in comparison to the ps4 version for loading up Spyro 2 and Spryo 3.

The first time Spyro has been respected in a long time, Toys for Bob did a pretty darn good job of capturing most of the style that made the original games great. Stewart Copeland's original soundtracks are also available from the start on all three games. Maybe they'll make a new game at some point?

I sure wish the games were on the cartridge. They could've done it easily on Switch, but chose to be greedy and make the cartridges useless in the future. I noticed NBA playgrounds 2 and Yooka-Laylee also both require huge downloads in order to play. I thought Nintendo required at least some of the game to be playable? When I tried those two cartridges on a new Switch with no internet connection I couldn't even start the games at all. This kind of stuff is absolute garbage compared to almost the entire history of games where you could simply play a game if you had it. Amazing how these corporations can screw up such basic stuff...

There's so much good music in these games. I remember spacing out to the music for Summer Forest hub world in Ripto's Rage. Just watched the ign gameplay video and I still love that music. In spite of the long load times, huge download requirement, and low performance 30fps graphics I think I'm going to have to get this game... I just have good memories of playing these games.

I downloaded the game through a friend's connected account and I gotta say, as someone who plays almost exclusively in handheld mode, this game looks absolutely terrible on the smaller screen. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the worst looking game in handheld mode that I've personally seen to date. I'm not even that big on visuals usually but this is REALLY bad to the point where it kinda actually ruins the experience. Everything looks so compressed and muddled, like a YouTube video that hasn't fully loaded yet. It's very distracting and I'm glad I didn't preorder or I would be pretty upset right now.

@TromaDogg I have a 500GB card and not worried about the space - what bothers me is that if I’m buying physical I expect the whole game to be on the cart. Ridiculous trend... but I’ve said this many times before unfortunately.

I haven't looked at it in handheld yet, but it looks fine in TV mode. The only slowdown I've seen is just after jumping on the "Return Home" pad, as it tallies up the gems. Otherwise it plays well, and looks just a little soft, but not in a particularly bad way. A little softness can actually help some games look less sharply digital and more film-like.

As someone who used to prefer having the actual cart or disc of a game, I've gotten pretty used to the download approach. I like having a well rounded roster of titles always on tap, and I certainly don't mind skipping the trip to Gamestop, with all the "looking for anything in particular?" and "Do you want to get the extended warranty coverage?" questions. Still, this kind of "physical release" makes a lot less sense. It's one thing to get the basic full game and then add on some optional extra content via downloads, but a cart that only houses a non-functioning shell of a game until the rest of it is added to the primary console?

I guess if someone wanted to have both a regular Switch and a Switch Lite, carts like this one wouldn't be much use.

You forgot one of the most important things that should be in the review of any 3D platformer: How does the camera work?!

Judging from a gameplay video, it appears to be a manual camera. Is there an automatic camera option? If not, then this remaster sucks! Adding an automatic camera should be the very first thing anyone focuses on when making a remaster of a 3D platformer from the 32/64 bit generation!

@SlyPlayr09 Oh, good! By definition, a manual camera is never decent. It's why the Mario 3D platformers (aside from 3D Land/World due to being specifically designed around static camera angles) are all highly overrated. For some reason, Nintendo still hasn't learned that completely manual cameras completely suck in 3D worlds.

Anyway, since this does in fact have a quality, automatic camera, why the HECK wasn't this mentioned in the review?! I shouldn't have to go to so much trouble looking at videos and skimming several other reviews just to figure out such a simple yet extremely important facet of the game! It's like reviewing an FPS and not describing how any (if it has them) motion controls work...oh wait, you guys don't do that the majority of the time, either! Pick up your review quality, Nintendo Life!

Nice review and nice score. But there are soooo many good games (retail and download) coming our way, it's impossible for me to buy them all this year. Let alone play them (I haven't even played Astral chain. I am currently playing Fire emblem). This one has to wait till next year.

@gamer89 Where in my post above yours did I mention ratchet? That's not the only game Insomniac makes, you know that right? Insomniac could have made games for Nintendo before the buy out, now they cannot. Even if Ratchet weren't Sony owned, they couldn't make it any other platform now.